Sunday, August 6, 2017

August Reads Part One

Exodus from the Long Sun by Gene WolfeA Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle

First, let us start by disclosing that I am not, in fact, a child between the ages of 10 and 14, no matter how much my (imaginary) detractors might paint me. I am not, therefore, the target audience for L'Engle's well-regarded and prize-winning novel A Wrinkle in Time. Still, with the upcoming film adaptation (let it never be said I am not a bandwaggoner), and my diving in the Catholic waters of Gene Wolfe, I thought this a good time as any to finally read it. Boy, was I disappointed. I was worried the overt Christian proselytizing would put me off, but this aspect wasn't that which stuck in my craw the most. Rather, L'Engle's flat plotting and tedious need to withhold from the audience got my goat. Any narrative which relies on the protagonist being told "this will all be explained later" or "now's not the time for questions" is a narrative I'm inclined to dislike. The same issue marring the entirety of Harry Potter taints every interaction in A Wrinkle in Time. Meg, the somewhat intriguing protagonist, is whisked on a quest for her father across time and space by three women who may or not be witches or angels or even stars (as in the gaseous source of heat and light for our planet), but any time Meg risks asking a question for clarity's sake, her efforts are rebuffed in clumsiest of manners. Never does anybody answer a direct question. It's infuriating. And obviously this is personal taste, as this narrative strategy is a well-used one for young adult fiction, meant to mirror the frustration of the young when they're told "you'll understand when you're older." Though it might be purposeful and effective for the younger reader, I found it beyond annoying. I could have managed through my irritation had the narrative had been otherwise compelling, but alas, the entire novel feels haphazard, bolted together from seemingly discrete episodes. The second half of A Wrinkle in Time changes settings to a planet controlled by what we're supposed to take to be Satan, I suppose. This totemic baddie manifests its evilness with—because it's the 1960s—communism. Yes, the great threat the protagonists must thwart (it's never clear why these particular kids and not any of the other billion people on the planet) is the specter of communism. *groan*. What kind of novel waits until the second half to introduce the primary conflict and setting? How much more shaggy and slapdash can this novel get? Alas, I will never find out as I jumped ship with 75 pages to go. I scanned the Wikipedia article for the remaining bits of "plot" as they are, and no, I can guarantee myself that I am missing nothing of import. An astonishingly boring novel, so boring I couldn't even finish 250 pages of it.

And thus, I finished the middle third of Wolfe's Solar Cycle. Nine books down, three to go. If I were to rank these four, I say: 2>4>1>3. The second one was terrific: paced as all hell, tightly controlled, and careful in its meting out of details. The third, with its long sections in the tunnels (oh god, the tunnels), could have used a trim. The fourth tamps down the insurrection plotline and the tunnels a bit (but there are still many scenes in the tunnels; oh god) for more existential dramas and some political intrigue. The fourth ups the metafictional quotient and obfuscates all that the reader has read before, in both compelling and annoying ways. A major reveal is so shrouded in Wolfe's style that it was entirely lost on me until I read the Dramatis Personae where it was revealed with little fanfare.

As for project as a whole? I loved it. Gene Wolfe is my quintessential "problematic fav." His treatment of women improves slightly with The Book of the Long Sun but he still finds time to denigrate sex work and have a woman completely naked for 200 pages. Breasts are always commented on, but only with the verb "heave" and Caldé Silk's love interest is the definition of beautiful vacuity. There's barely any reason for her and Silk to love one another but love one another they do, in the most simpering ways possible. I can recognize these flaws, both pervasive and structural, but I can't seem to give up on him. His "medieval fantasy world with traces of high technology" arrests me every time. I can't wait for my omnibus of The Book of the Short Sun to arrive so I can keep going.

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This is a blog by me that's pretty much for me as I have no readers. I try and write things and think critically about stuff. I am totally embarrassed by the quality of writing and thinking from 2013 and earlier.